THE HOUR OF LOVE
[p. 312] THE HOUR OF LOVE
John 12: 27 - 30; 1 John 2: 18, 27; Luke 22: 14 - 20
You will observe the presence in these scriptures of the word “hour”. It is because of its presence and significance in them that I have read them, being at the same time, desirous of freedom from mere arbitrariness in the use of words employed in Scripture. Scripture is calculated, not only to instruct the believer as such, but to furnish material for the service of the levites. In both respects it is wonderfully designed, so that the minister finds himself in possession of an inexhaustible supply of material for the ministry to the saints.
The word “hour” in these scriptures is a suggestion of condensation of events into a comparatively small compass of time. Amongst the divisions of time, the hour stands out and is often used for a long period literally, but the word is used to convey to the mind that the period is marked by condensation of thoughts or events, sometimes crises; and what I have in mind is that we should become accustomed to this. We have, for instance, in regard to divisions of time in the book of Revelation a remarkable allusion to the history of Asia, the dreadful darkness of which has so often pressed in upon believers, and why such conditions there should exist and exist so long. Revelation speaks of four angels that are bound in the river Euphrates, “which were prepared for the hour and day and month and year” (chapter 9: 15). Everything is scheduled with God, and however much apparent delay there may be in His public ways, the believer is taught that even in great dark Asia things are scheduled even to the hour. So that as that hour arrives, everything will be manifested, and the universe will see that in His wise government God has held things as they are.
I refer to it because of the word ‘hour’, and what an [p. 313] hour can be as entering into the great public ways of God, soon now to come to full fruition; for the book of Revelation is intended, among other things, to bring us into accord with His mind as to what is now imminent. Great public occurrences are now near, and that book is intended to bring the saints into accord with God, as sitting upon His throne and dealing with those nations belonging to the world of Noah. His public relations will be according to His covenant with Noah; for the rainbow is there, and everything will be seen in all those dark places of the earth to work out in perfect accord with that rainbow, with the covenant that it represents — God’s faithfulness to His creation. There is already a testimony to it in the assembly, for the commission, according to Mark, given to the Lord’s servants as He ascended up to heaven, was that they should “Go into all the world, and preach the glad tidings to all the creation”. There are two distinct thoughts there, the one involving opposition and suffering, and the other involving the faithfulness of God with His creation.
Now, if we are to be with God as to His public ways, we shall need to learn what I am speaking of; we shall need to understand compression of thoughts, and of circumstances, whether good or bad, and we shall need to learn how to go through them — for we are called upon to go through them. Some, indeed, we shall not go through. The Lord specifically promises the assembly at Philadelphia that He will keep her (implying the whole assembly) from the hour of trial. That is a terrible hour. It is not exactly Jacob’s trouble, although, like it, it is a trial that is to come upon all the world to try those that dwell upon the earth — a very solemn matter, a warning indeed to all who are disposed to be earth-dwellers. There is a terrible hour of trial imminent, coming upon all such, on all earth-dwellers, but to the faithful seen in Philadelphia, that is, the one of the seven phases of the assembly marked by love for Christ [p. 314] and keeping His word, there is a promise that they will be kept out of that hour; they will not be called to pass through it. The intimation, indeed, is clear enough, according to the Lord’s way of intimation in those symbolical addresses in Revelation 2 and 3, that He means the assembly. The assembly is near to His heart, and wherever He finds two or three in accord with it, He can bring in the whole thought. So that, “where two or three”, as He says, “are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”, Matthew 18: 20. He promises to keep us out of the hour of trial which is to come upon all the world to try those that dwell on the earth. That is a comforting promise, and implies that the Lord personally will come and rapture us, as we often have it — a thought which should be ever burning in our hearts. He will come Himself. Rebecca brought to Isaac is not a type of the rapture; the servant of Abraham is a type of that service which brings us to Christ now in the assembly, but presently the Lord Himself, as He says, shall descend — He comes for us.
I want to enlarge on this thought from the sacred and holy theme of the Lord’s own sufferings in Gethsemane and on the cross. Hardly, indeed, am I able to deal with such a subject, for, as has often been remarked, it is more for holy contemplation than for ministry, but still it is part of the truth relative to Christ; and the sufferings of Christ are one of the greatest and most extensive themes in Scripture. Scripture is full of them, and so one would seek from the Lord grace to say a word, so that we might learn from Him, as we have to in everything; how to be in a crisis, how to go through it — for this involves not only the entrance into it, but the going through it, and the coming out of it. We have had already before us today, dear brethren, the Lord entering into His hour; this hour He speaks of as causing soul trouble to Him, and how unspeakable were the events before Him, events that stirred Him [p. 315] to such depths. His soul was troubled, but we noted that, in entering upon this solemn moment, He spoke to His Father. Entering into Gethsemane, we are told that He disposed of His disciples, saying to them, “Sit here until I go away and pray yonder”. The Lord would thus call us, as it were, into nearness to Him; He would honour us in disposing of us, according to His wisdom, in the scene of His sufferings. Then He makes His selection; that is to say, He always reserves His sovereign right in regard of us, and there must be no complaint as to this, for it is in infinite wisdom. He selects three, Peter and the sons of Zebedee, trusted ones, to be with Him, and so He enters into Gethsemane. I speak of Gethsemane in this way so as to make the scene vivid to your minds, and to enlist your sympathies with the Sufferer, for we are to be brought to His side, as it were, to learn something, and to breathe the atmosphere of the place. There is no place like Gethsemane; it stands alone; it is the place of supreme pressure to Christ, and I speak of it, as I said, to draw you into it, so that we might breathe the atmosphere of His sufferings.
John, whilst he does not mention Gethsemane, mentions what it means, and, in accord with the thought of the inwardness that was his as in the bosom of Jesus, presents the thought in this setting. The Lord says, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour”. I wish you, dear brethren, just to picture the setting of this from the beloved disciple. It is surrounded with the greatest events and suggestions. We have the resurrection of Lazarus; we have the Lord’s acceptance outwardly in Jerusalem as He entered into it; we have the Greeks coming up, and the Lord’s remark, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified”. That is a deferred hour, another hour, not the one I am speaking of. It is a deferred hour, an hour when He would be accepted in [p. 316] Jerusalem — glorious anticipation — an hour when the gentiles will own His rightful sway, and when the saved of the nations will acknowledge Him. But then He says, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone”. He would have remained alone aside from His entrance into death, falling into the ground and dying — a remarkable figure of the reality of His death: “but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit”. All these great things enter into this position.
So the Lord proceeds to say, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour”. You see how He entered into it. He entered into it with the appeal to His Father, and, as we learn from Luke, as He comes out of the forsaking, He again says, “Father”. So we have the example from Himself as to how to enter into and come out of crises. He says, “what shall I say?” How this challenges one’s heart! If one has a definite purpose in this world, determined to go through and reach his end, he has got only one mind, and that is to do his own will. But not so Jesus. Whilst He rightly and holily recoiled from the hour, yet He says, “Father, glorify thy name”, and “for this cause came I unto this hour”. There was a definite purpose with Him to carry out the Father’s will, and, dear brethren, we shall go through every crisis in our histories and glorify God in them as we proceed on these lines. As we weigh things over in the presence of God, how wholesome it is to challenge the heart: “what shall I say?” The Lord says, “save me from this hour”, but then He further says immediately “for this cause came I unto this hour”. What for? To glorify the Father. Every crisis in our histories is to that end.
I want to pass on to the hour that John presents in his epistle, he is speaking to the little children. John under the guidance of the Spirit divides the saints into grades, and addresses them as fathers, young men, and little children, and what he says to the little children [p. 317] involves an hour. The character of the hour is danger, and it is “the last hour”. You may say it has now lasted centuries. Yes, but in the mind of the Spirit it was the last hour, and the evidence of it was that antichrist was known to be coming, and that already there were many. This is a word for young christians peculiarly, for they are exposed to anti-Christian influences, especially teaching, more than older ones. It is a great general matter, running on to the end, and in it the little children are called upon to take note of the dangers involved. It is an hour including most extraordinary events. We are now at the end, and condensation marks the moment. The rapidity with which things happen and change in the world; the rapidity with which things change in the religious world; the succession of great events involving changes — these things are in view and pass on to the multiplication of antichrists: “many antichrists”, he says. Now, the young are called upon to face this. It is a question of danger, of being deceived, of darkness, of the enemy’s power to divert the young by what seems to be like Christ — antichrist taking on the form of imitation.
You will understand that this is a very different matter from what I have been speaking of. It is not the Lord’s sufferings now, but it is a crisis, and the young are to learn from the Lord how to face this, how to approach the Father; and so John says to the little children, “I write unto you ... because ye have known the Father” (verse 13). One of the most precious heritages is that even the youngest believer is regarded as knowing the Father. The fathers know Him that is from the beginning; the young men are strong and have the word of God abiding in them, and so the apostle not only writes to them as to their immediate circumstances, but he says, “I have written unto you, fathers ... I have written unto you, young men ...”; but he does not say it in this formal way to the little children. It is as if he were to say to these, Every word [p. 318] I say to you must have a present bearing; you are so exposed, you need to be exhorted as to current dangers; I am not writing something to you in a book to place on your shelves — you will not read it — I must speak to you directly; I must keep on speaking to you. That is the principle. We may thank God for the things that have been written. I do. I am sure every spiritual brother and sister here thanks God for his bookcase, full of holy ministry that has been written, but the Spirit of God would urge us to read it. Many do not read. The pressure of the time, indeed, interferes with reading, but then in a crisis I must face the difficulties. The difficulties are owned but overcome; and if we face the difficulty as to time for reading, we shall overcome it, and we shall learn to be fathers and young men; that is to say, those who have things written to them and left with them as it were. Would to God that the profitable things that have been written were more circulated, and that there were a better appetite for them! They are foundational, they furnish us with this very thing that I am speaking of in view of the “last hour”. The bearing of them is the “last hour”; the precious written ministry of the last hundred years is a great heritage. The apostle John says, “I have written unto you, fathers ... I have written unto you, young men”. What has been written is provision for us in the continual conflict for the truth. That John does not say, in the same formal way, I have written to you, little children, is a suggestion that young people do not read much, that they cannot be trusted to read, that they must be spoken to as to current circumstances. It is not, indeed, to suggest that they are not christians, for he says that they have the unction (verse 27). In this address, from verse 18, he would encourage the little children by saying that they are really christians, they know the Father, they can speak to the Father, and they have the unction. He speaks of that two or three times. He says, “I have not written unto you because [p. 319] ye know not the truth, but because ye know it”. There is not a young christian here that does not know the truth; and that you know it adds to your responsibility; the Spirit of God is speaking to you because you know it. Then the knowledge of it is to be maintained and kept intact. The unction renders this possible. The Colossians were in danger of adding other things. They knew the truth; and the apostle praises them for the order that marked them; but he saw they were in danger of “philosophy and vain deceit”. Not that I would say they were little children, but even they were capable of being influenced by the corrupt products of the cultivated human mind, and that is the point here — what the antichrists are saying. So the apostle John in our scripture urges on the young to pay attention to the Holy Spirit which they had received, the unction which they had received from the Holy One. Look into your hearts, young people, and see what state is there, whether the Holy Spirit is grieved or whether there is a holy abode for Him.
This is how the christendom-wide crisis is to be met. It has been on since John’s time, and you can understand how acute it is now. These little children are somewhat like the Thessalonians; and it is a matter of interest and instruction that it is to the Thessalonians the apostle Paul writes about antichrist. Bright and marked christians as they were of a few weeks old, they were distressed by false teachers; and that is the danger with all young people. So I would urge that you face this matter, bringing the Father and the Spirit into it by prayer. The Lord Himself said, “when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret”, Matthew 6: 6. That is the great way of meeting Satan’s efforts through the antichrists, and the Spirit gives understanding. The Thessalonians are touchingly taken account of by the apostle. He does not address them as an apostle; he says, “Paul and Silvanus, and Timotheus” — [p. 320] men known to you, men who have been amongst you, men whom you have loved, men whom you know have the tenderest feelings for you, these are the ones writing to you. They are addressed as “in God the Father”, and not only in God the Father severally, but as an assembly in God the Father. They had learned to walk together, young though they were, and to have part in the assembly, to work out assembly matters together — how pleasing to the Father!
That is the position in this crisis, and what is urged, dear young people, as I said before, is the unction. It is what you have received, and if you have received it, what use are you making of it? Why did you receive it? ‘What have you in the house?’ was enquired of old by Elisha, 2 Kings 4: 2. It is for you to look into this matter and see what you have to meet the crisis. So, in verse 27, the apostle says, “yourselves”; that is, there are those outside who are under anti-christian influence. What kind of people are they? The apostle says, “They went out from us”. Why? Because “they were not of us”. The apostles represented God. But then, he says later, “We are of God” (chapter 4: 6), and not only so, but he says as to the saints, “Ye are of God” (verse 4). Let us not take any other ground; let us not begin to say, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Luther, I am of Wesley. No, we must not say that. If we do, we do damage to our souls, and, indeed, in this respect become like the anti-Christian world. The great thing is that we are of God. The apostles say “They are of the world”, the anti-Christian teachers; but then he says, “Ye are of God”. What dignity! So the apostle Paul says, “of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption”, 1 Corinthians 1: 30. How independent of the world we are as “of God”!
So verse 27, as I said, brings in “yourselves”. How suggestive that is, meaning christians, those who have the unction, those who have the Spirit! It is beautiful [p. 321] to see young men or young women as together conversing about divine things. And in what manner? As having the unction, marked by Spiritual dignity in their communications. How different from the rubbish that is often common amongst christians! “Yourselves” have the unction, and you do not need any other. The Spirit of God is the preservative from the antichristian world. Through Him we are the preserved in Jesus Christ.
In closing, I must refer to the well-known passage I have read from Luke. Perhaps I have read it as much as anyone here, and I never tire of those verses 14 to 20. It is a very different hour. Not now the hour of Christ’s sufferings, nor the hour of antichrist; it is the hour of love, and how attractive it is! And how compressed things are in it! I will tell you what will come out presently as the fulness of those verses — the heavenly city; what will illumine the universe and, in a sense, fill it, is the outcome of those verses, and so, I just invite you to look at them for a moment — they present the hour of love. There is such a time. Outside there is murderous hatred; inside, the calendar has on it this hour. Let us get into it; let us live in it. Why should it be made a matter of three or six months? In the spiritual calendar this hour is weekly. Luke looks at it thus and says: “the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread”, Acts 20: 7. I wonder if anyone within the sound of my voice here is not in that “we”. I urge you to get into that “we”. I am quoting from the New Translation. Luke includes himself, and lets us see what great persons were there, persons that we shall all meet in heaven; we shall sit down with them, and speak of love known in a world of wickedness and hatred, but now in its own place, for love has its home. This world is not the home of love; it is an exotic in it, and yet it is sustained in this world. It is a great triumph that love, which is of God, is present and operative in this world.
[p. 322] The love of Christ which passeth knowledge is known in and by the assembly.
Luke in Acts 20 tells us of certain persons that were present on the occasion of the Lord’s supper being celebrated at Troas, and he says there were many lights in that upper room. It was a glorious affair, not like Belshazzar’s feast with its iniquitous conduct of debauchery and worldly glory. No, it is the place of holy love, where divine light shines, and where Paul, the representative of heaven’s best, discourses till midnight. Did anyone there, outside of Eutychus, complain of the length of the address? There is no evidence of this. Alas for Eutychus! — and yet not alas! for, after all, love made the most of the matter: “love never fails”. How important to be in the realm of love even if you fail; it will do its best for you. See what it made of that boy! He became enfolded in the arms of love, and love of the best quality. It was no less than that of Paul, and he delivered him to them, but he was alive — his life was in him; he was resuscitated in the power of love, and brought back into the hour of love. They took him away “not a little comforted”, not now a youth, but a boy, that is, a great potentiality, the outcome of the energy of love.
I would urge everyone here to get into that realm, the place of love. So “when the hour was come”, we are told in these verses in Luke, the Lord placed Himself at table “and the twelve apostles with him”. You may say, Why the apostles? Why not Mary Magdalene, and all the rest? There is wisdom in it. The Lord virtually says to us, I want you to know what this hour really is, and to that end you must have accredited witness to it, so that it may never be misrepresented or marred. Those men are seen in Acts 1, in the upper room in Jerusalem, and their presence is the guarantee that nothing contrary to Christ will be admitted. Later, Jude has to say, “These are spots in your love-feasts” (verse 12). They could not have been where the apostles,
[p. 323] Mary and the other women, and the brethren of Jesus had their place. That is the reason, as I understand it, why He places Himself at table with the twelve apostles; He has accredited witnesses. We must have the thing as it was; and, so that it should be so amongst the gentiles, the Lord gave it to Paul, one thoroughly trustworthy, who delivered to the Corinthians what the Lord delivered to him. There was nothing added to it. Thank God, we have it now, stripped of all man’s superstitions and additions. The Lord has done it, and it is delivered to us so that we might have the conditions of this hour of love, and that we might grow in love and become ready for the great time of love in its own home in heaven. That is what is in view, beloved brethren, in these last days. Let us be awake to it, and let no one ignore this hour, for it is in truth the guarantee against the hour of antichrist of which I have been speaking.
The hour, as you will note, is after the passover, for Luke carefully distinguishes the passover from the Lord’s supper. Of course, the hour here is primarily that for the passover, but the Lord has taken it on, and has made it the hour of His supper for us. It was a great hour in Israel, but the Lord is here putting into it what never had been there before. He is transferring it into the time of His supper, which is to continue; the hour into which His love for the assembly enters and God’s love for His people, that is to say, the bread and the cup, the presentation to our hearts of the love of Christ for us; and the love of God for us. The Holy Spirit coming into it, the latter involves a ministry which is called the ministry of glory: “how shall not rather the ministry of the Spirit subsist in glory?” 2 Corinthians 3: 8. It is the love of God made effective in our hearts in this hour, and it garrisons us in view of the general darkness and prepares us for that eternity into which we are about to enter. The day of eternity is spoken of, for God graciously comes into our way of thinking. But eternity is eternity; it is, in a sense,
God, for we are to be “filled even to all the fulness of God”, Ephesians 3: 19; that is our home in eternity. It is what God is in Christ. He is on God’s side and on our side. Think of having Him on our side! This time of love is Christ on our side; He comes in and is with us. He placed Himself at table with them. He places Himself alongside of us and would lead us into the realm that He knows so well, that eternal home of love.
May God bless these simple thoughts to us in view of the last hour!
Pages 325 - 427 “We have an Altar”. U.S.A. and Great Britain 1934 (Volume 120).